


familiarity

by powerandpathos



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Illustrations, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Time Travel, time-traveller!he tian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:09:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27547375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powerandpathos/pseuds/powerandpathos
Summary: He has his own apartment now—cramped, but only a 20-minute walk from the restaurant, and the landlord is a regular who’s agreed to pay for his utilities in exchange for free food a few nights a week. It’s an easy symbiosis, and Guan Shan wishes most things fell into place like that.Instead, he has a boyfriend who gets pulled through time and never shows up at the right one.-[19 Days Request for@teanshan- time!travel He Tian, a companion piece to Tracey's fanart.]
Relationships: He Tian/Mo Guanshan (19 Days), Jian Yi/Zhan Zhengxi (19 Days)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 198





	familiarity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [traceytries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/traceytries/gifts).



> Immense thanks as always to Tracey for supporting me by requesting this fi and entrusting me to use her artwork as inspiration and run with it. All her beautiful art can be found on her [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/teanshan_/). Inspiration for the fic was also taken heavily from one of my favourite films/books, 'The Time Traveler's Wife', as well as the K-drama, 'My Love From Another Star'. Any similarities are intentional. Enjoy!

‘Where is he?’ Guan Shan’s mother whispers. ‘I promised I’d get a photo of him.’

‘He’ll be here,’ Guan Shan mutters. ‘Just wait.’

‘He wouldn’t skip it, would he? You don’t think he’d skip it?’

‘I dunno, Ma. Just wait.’

‘Would he skip it?’

Guan Shan swallows a sigh. ‘Don’t think highschool graduation’s ever been high on his list of priorities.’

‘But you are.’

‘Well,’ says Guan Shan. He shifts in the plastic fold-up chair starting to make his ass feel numb. ‘Yeah.’

The day is hot and humid; a thick gauze clouds over the sky that dulls the sharpness of the sun. Behind the drone of the principal’s voice reading out the name of Guan Shan’s classmates, the cicadas are loud and thrumming, a high keen inside his ears.

He’s close to falling asleep, but his father’s hand-me-down suit keeps him awake, a scratchy irritant against his skin, the back of his neck hot and uncomfortable beneath the collar of his off-white shirt. He heard his ma last night, taken to dousing the fabric in baking soda in the kitchen sink to get out the stained yellowish hue.

He stays awake, too, with the pressing reality that his mother is right: He Tian isn’t here, and Guan Shan is. There’s a discrepancy there that Guan Shan can’t ignore even if he wants to.

_He said he’d be here._

There must be three hundred classmates gathered outside on the sports pitch, and He Tian isn’t one of them.

‘Student Mo Guan Shan, Class 3-C.’

Guan Shan blinks. His mother jostles him on the arm.

‘That’s you,’ she whispers urgently. ‘Go on.’

He’s ushered to the side of the stage behind a few other lingering classmates, and the whole thing is over before he can register the moment: bowing before the principal, having his hand shaken—limply, without affection—by his homeroom teacher. He smiles before a camera, forgets to look into the crowds for his mother, and then it’s done with and he’s sitting back down on the plastic chair with a certificate and a leaflet printed with the order of events.

‘You did so well,’ his mother whispers.

‘Didn’t have to do much,’ Guan Shan says gruffly. ‘D’you get your photos?’

She grins at him. ‘We’ll put them on the TV later. We can go through them all.’

Guan Shan rolls his eyes, but he lets her have it. He owes her this, at least.

‘I haven’t seen him, by the way,’ she says. ‘I don’t think he’s coming.’

Guan Shan swallows. ‘Whatever. Not like he’s missin’ much.’

His mother tuts. ‘You’ve put in so much work—you deserve this.’

Someone shushes them, and Guan Shan and his ma share a look but say nothing more. The ceremony continues. Twenty minutes later, Guan Shan pulls out his phone. No texts, no messages. He flicks through Weibo until a teacher hisses at him to put his phone away, and his mother scoffs at the reprimand under her breath.

The day is getting hotter, and Guan Shan has finished the complementary plastic bottle of water beneath his seat, already lukewarm by the time he cracked it open. He wants a cold beer and fried rice and a few hours playing Overwatch, then a few weeks of thinking about nothing but his part-time shift at the grocery store, which he’ll stick with until the end of summer.

There’s the rest of it, too: dinner with He Tian, sneaking He Tian home while his ma heads out for the night shift, weekends spent fucking and playing video games, warm evenings giving way to autumn on the basketball courts. Date nights at He Tian’s perpetually empty apartment, takeout on the floor.

That’s how it’s been for two years. Guan Shan doesn’t like to think that any of it could change now that highschool’s ending, too. Now that school doesn’t force them to be together, as if there’s no red string at their fingertips, bound together by necessity. Guan Shan closes his eyes against the bright sun. He can feel a headache coming on—tiredness, dehydration. His mother fans herself with the printed order of events.

After this—what, a real job? Saving for a place of his own? Right now, it feels impossible and makes his chest feel tight. He failed the _gaokao_ in June—no fucking surprises—and he would never have made it through three years of university anyway. Without He Tian, he probably wouldn’t have finished highschool.

He Tian’s barely talked about what he wants to do. He hasn’t mentioned whether he’ll stay in the city, whether he’ll stay in the apartment in which he and Guan Shan could live together—if he wanted to. He’s kept as quiet about his future as he does the rest of his family, as if he too is some stupid fucking enigma he’s not able to answer.

Guan Shan knows what it’s like to keep things close to his chest, to bury them so far behind his beating heart that someone would have to get through that first for what they really want—but sometimes he wishes He Tian would try.

‘Student He Tian, Class 3-A.’

Guan Shan sits up straight.

For a minute, there’s no motion, only other students getting to their feet when they’re called—and then Guan Shan sees him. Long legs carry him through the walkways between seats, and he nearly bounds onto the stage. A few students whoop. The principal is grinning when He Tian bows. His homeroom teacher smiles warmly.

Guan Shan’s throat feels sore.

‘Just in time!’ Guan Shan’s mother remarks. ‘ _Wā,_ doesn’t he look handsome?’

Guan Shan presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth. ‘He does,’ he says.

He wants to be angry with He Tian—they were supposed to go to the ceremony together, meeting at the bus stop in the morning. His mother had booked an expensive restaurant for lunch. But Guan Shan’s heard nothing—until now.

Somehow, He Tian catches his eye across the rows of students, facility and parents. He winks.

Guan Shan’s face burns.

Probably, no one notices.

‘I saw that.’

Probably, no one but Guan Shan’s mother notices.

He Tian accepts his diploma, bows to everyone in attendance, then lifts his hand to the side of his face, thumb and little finger extended.

 _I’ll call you_ , he mouths from the stage.

Guan Shan sinks low in his seat.

It can’t end quickly enough.

Soon, the field becomes a hectic ground of students thanking teachers, making final goodbyes, and parents trailing past their kids through unfamiliar throngs. Guan Shan sees Zhengxi somewhere in the crowd and nods. They’ll catch up some time for a beer or three before Zhengxi heads off for a summer placement in Shanghai and then university in Tianjin. Zhengxi’s sister is in highschool now with her sights set on art school and with Jian Yi still gone there’s little else keeping him around.

Guan Shan doesn’t blame him. Frankly, he’s a little jealous.

If not for He Tian he’d have zero prospects—nothing else keeping him there except his ma and nothing that could help him to leave.

Guan Shan presses this down. He _has_ He Tian.

At least he thinks he does.

‘Has he fucked off again?’ he mutters.

‘Shan Shan,’ his ma chides, standing at his side.

‘D’you see him anywhere?’

She frowns, head craning, but it’s no use. She barely comes to Guan Shan’s shoulders on her good days.

‘I thought he was just… there…’ She clicks her tongue. ‘Have you tried calling him?’

‘Yeah, no answer. Haven’t heard from him since last night. Kinda gettin’ the impression he doesn’t wanna see me.’

‘Did you two have a fight again?’ she asks carefully.

Guan Shan pulls at his shirt collar. ‘We don’t _always_ fight.’

‘It was a fair question.’

She casts her gaze around them one last time. The crowds have started to thin a little. The streets will be packed with everyone heading out from the school grounds, into cars or taxis or getting the subway into the city, choked up with kids Guan Shan doesn’t plan on seeing again any time soon.

‘Let’s just go,’ he says with a sinking feeling. ‘He’d call me by now.’

‘Guan Shan…’

‘C’mon,’ he mutters. ‘We’ll miss our reservation.’

She gives him a long look, then offers a smile that only half reaches her eyes. She squeezes his arm.

‘Just the two of us! That’ll be fun!’

Guan Shan tries and fails to grab onto her enthusiasm. ‘Yeah,’ he says, starting to feel nauseated. ‘Three’s a crowd anyway.’

* * *

_‘It’s me. I’m downstairs. Can I come up?’_

Guan Shan blinks at the ceiling, then puts a hand over his face. His eyes are sore. He squints at the clock on his bedside. 3.30am. His TV is blinking on standby across from the bed and the controller lies up-ended on the floor; he must’ve fallen asleep playing video games, committing to something else to distract him from the thought of trying He Tian’s number for the sixth time.

‘Where were you?’ he asks. His voice is hoarse and scratchy from sleep. He tries to clear it. ‘I called you, like, five times—’

‘Can I come up?’ He Tian cuts in. ‘At least let me apologise in person.’

Guan Shan puts an arm over his eyes. ‘I think—’ He breaks off and wets his lips. ‘You made shit pretty clear earlier. End of highschool, end of us, yeah?’

‘No,’ He Tian says, his voice loud through the receiver of Guan Shan’s phone. ‘That’s not it. Just let me up—’

‘I don’t wanna. You’ll come up and we’ll we fight and fuck and—’

‘Is that so bad?’

Guan Shan sits up. ‘It was _graduation_ , He Tian.’

‘I thought you didn’t care. You said it was—and I quote— _an end-credit show where half the fuckers are in small print.’_

‘We were gonna have dinner with my mother. We booked a place for you. She was lookin’ forward to it. ’

_I was looking forward to it._

‘Guan Shan—’

‘Where the fuck _were_ you?’

He Tian sighs. ‘Just let me come up.’

Guan Shan grits his teeth. For a moment, neither of them say anything. Guan Shan can’t bring himself to get out of bed. His eyes have just started to adjust to the dim light, his Xbox blinking placidly on his desk. He swallows a yawn and it makes his eyes water.

‘I’m tired,’ he says. ‘I’ll come down, but you’re not comin’ up.’

He Tian sighs again. ‘If that’s what you want.’

* * *

Guan Shan stares at him.

It’s been a few days since they last saw each other, and He Tian’s growing facial hair faster these days. He’ll be nineteen in September, one of the oldest in their year group, and he’s always towered inches above the rest of them. He smells like he’s chain-smoked a pack of cigarettes and the artificial light in the lobby does nothing to help the shadows beneath his eyes and in the hollowed trenches of his cheekbones—but none of that explains this.

‘Are you _on_ somethin’?’ Guan Shan asks flatly. ‘What is it? Molly?’

‘I’m not on drugs,’ He Tian sighs.

‘You’re on _somethin’_ ,’ Guan Shan counters sharply. He takes another step closer, gets a whiff of the strange smell that lingers on He Tian’s dark clothing. Cigarettes, aftershave, sweat—something else. He can’t put his finger on what it is. He can’t get over the truth of what he’s seeing.

He Tian looks older.

Not just tired or worn-out—run dry by the mania of his own family. _Physically_. As if He Tian’s grown another inch and adopted the sharpness of a man three years older than he ever used to be. His voice, even, has dropped a little.

Guan Shan shakes his head. ‘What the fuck, He Tian?’

He Tian scratches his jawline, searching for the words. The sound of nails on stubble makes Guan Shan’s skin crawl. He doesn’t understand what he’s seeing.

‘I didn’t mean to shock you,’ says He Tian.

‘I don’t get what I’m lookin’ at right now. Why d’you look… Why are you _different?’_

He Tian’s looking at Guan Shan like this is a little bit funny. Maybe not amusing, but—embarrassing. Awkward. Everything’s a joke to him, but Guan Shan knows He Tian has to laugh or he’ll spend the rest of his life in fucking misery.

‘You won’t believe me if I tell you,’ says He Tian.

‘Try me.’

* * *

The night repeats itself for the rest of the year.

It’s strange how quickly it becomes normal. Sometimes He Tian is younger—sometimes he’s nearly thirty. Guan Shan refuses to go out with him then; it’s difficult letting him in the flat. He knows his mother will ask questions.

When he’s eighteen and young, tethered to the present day for a few days or week at best, Guan Shan can’t get enough of him. There’s an addiction in knowing He Tian— _his_ He Tian—has made his way back here. That he still comes to him at the end of the night, exhausted and sore. He doesn’t talk much about where he’s been, what he’s seen, what future he’s been living in for some indeterminate amount of time.

Guan Shan has stopped asking him how it works. He doesn’t know.

The only one who might have any answers is He Tian’s mother, and she’s been dead for some time.

Guan Shan sees out his job at the grocery store. When he hits nineteen his manager refuses to keep him on longer when she can replace him with another middle school kid on minimum wage. Guan Shan gets it. With a 7/11 on every corner, business is tough.

He works evenings at a restaurant, takes on extra shifts when he can. The money is decent and means his mother doesn’t have to shoulder the rent alone. In three years, he might make it to manager. In ten, he could’ve saved enough to open his own place. It’s a pipe-dream for which he refuses to accept He Tian’s help.

He doesn’t know which He Tian he’d be taking from.

‘Why do you think we’re different people?’ He Tian asks him one evening.

They’re eating takeout on He Tian’s apartment floor. It’s a week until the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the floor-length windows have fogged up with condensation since the heating kicked in. Moon cakes sit in a bakery box on the counter, untouched, and Guan Shan wonders if _his_ He Tian will be around on the day to share them.

‘’Cause you are,’ says Guan Shan. ‘You’ve all—seen different shit. You know different shit.’

‘But I’m still the same person, Little Mo.’

Guan Shan searches He Tian’s eyes: they belong to someone older, more of the adult Guan Shan knows he isn’t yet himself. He still feels a little self-conscious when he meets He Tian’s gaze—like a kid.

‘You used to say people could change with time,’ Guan Shan ventures. ‘Like, they go through different shit and become different people. Doesn’t that make you someone else?’

He Tian prods at a container of sesame oil noodles with a thoughtful look. ‘Does that mean you’re cheating on me with me?’

‘I mean. The _other_ -you’s already know, right?’

‘Other-me’s,’ He Tian says, chuckling. ‘I suppose they do.’

‘They don’t seem to mind.’

‘I suppose they don’t.’ He Tian’s gaze darkens. ‘I certainly have no complaints.’

Guan Shan chews on his lower lip. ‘Isn’t it weird for you?’ he asks. ‘Doesn’t it creep you out?’

‘Which part?’

‘Me bein’ young all the time.’

He Tian leans back slightly. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘It’s not all the time. I see you in the future, too.’

Guan Shan gives him a flat look. ‘You’re cheatin’ on me?’

He says it in jest, but the thought is a strange one that he’s not wholly comfortable with and doesn’t care to explore. He Tian’s carefully returned gaze and the silence says he senses this.

Guan Shan swallows, feeling awkward. ‘How far in the future d’you go? I’ve only ever seen you, like, thirty or younger.’ He pauses, then says, ‘Where’s Uncle He Tian?’

‘Fucking—’ He Tian nearly chokes on his noodles. ‘Don’t _ever_ say that again.’

Guan Shan holds his gaze. ‘You want me to call you daddy?’

They can’t help themselves: snickering laughter ricochets around the apartment, which is still unlived in and bothers Guan Shan with its echoing emptiness.

With composure Guan Shan says, ‘Seriously. You’re never older than late-twenties, early-thirties. Why is that?’

He Tian looks thoughtful. ‘I don’t know,’ he says honestly. ‘I can travel to the future but I can’t see it. I don’t know why older me doesn’t show up. Probably the same reason I never really went looking for you when you were younger, if I had to guess.’

‘Which was?’

‘It wasn’t, ah… I didn’t feel comfortable about it. I kept my distance from you if I landed in that timeline. And I was always around then—young me, I mean—so you weren’t alone. I didn’t really start to travel until I hit eighteen. Not for long, anyway.’

‘That time in middle school, when you said you were sick and flunked school for a few days—’

He Tian nods. ‘I got stuck. Before then, it was only ever a few hours at a time. A day at most. I was fourteen and didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. He Cheng took me to see a specialist. He wanted to help.’

‘Did it?’

‘Well,’ He Tian says, smiling, ‘that depends on your perspective, doesn’t it?’

* * *

He makes head chef by twenty-two. He saves a table for his mother on opening night for 8pm and another for He Tian at 10. He doesn’t keep track of how full the restaurant is, judges it only by the number of orders that flood in and how full the rice-cookers stay. The rest he leaves to the cooks and the waiters, who don’t get to give him any orders tonight—who can’t comment on how fucking sweat-soaked he gets as the evening grows later, and certainly can’t comment on Table 12 that has stayed empty all evening.

‘Chúshī Mo,’ murmurs Yi Yun, tugging Guan Shan to one side. ‘It’s still empty—’

‘I told you not to mention it.’

‘I know, but—’

‘How’s the hazel mushroom comin’ along?’

Yi Yun sighs. ‘It’s fine.’

‘Good,’ says Guan Shan, watching a set of finished plates get carried out on a serving tray. ‘Do’you wanna wait tables, Yi Yun?’

She looks at her feet. ‘No, Chúshī Mo.’

‘Good,’ Guan Shan says again. ‘It’d be wasted talent. ‘Cause, y’know, I hired you on as sous-chef to watch over food—not empty tables.’

Yi Yun retreats back to check on the assistants, mollified but refusing to acknowledge it, and Guan Shan barely speaks to her for the rest of the evening. He doesn’t dwell on it because he can’t. He won’t feel bad about it because instead there’s a tight fist pulling his heart away from the arteries.

He Tian hasn’t shown.

Suddenly, Guan Shan is eighteen and sitting on a plastic fold-up chair, and the hot summer sun is only the heat of the kitchen and the sting of chillies in his eyes. No matter how good his mother says the food is, he knows he’s going to hate this night for a while.

He has his own apartment now—cramped, but only a 20-minute walk from the restaurant, and the landlord is a regular who’s agreed to pay for his utilities in exchange for free food a few nights a week. It’s an easy symbiosis, and Guan Shan wishes most things fell into place like that.

Instead, he has a boyfriend who gets pulled through time and never shows up at the right one.

‘I tried to get back,’ He Tian tells him later that night. This version of him is young—younger than Guan Shan thinks he’s ever seen him travel. Eighteen or nineteen? He’s wearing a suit.

‘High school graduation,’ Guan Shan murmurs, washing his hands in the bathroom sink and patting his face dry with a towel. ‘You’re from that time, aren’t you?’

He Tian grins down at his shoes. ‘Your mother kept telling you how handsome I looked.’

‘You missed dinner that night, too.’

He Tian’s smile tightens until he looks as if he’s biting down on the inside of his cheek. Guan Shan knows this is a little unfair: He Tian is still only a teenager at this stage, and Guan Shan’s putting the responsibility belonging to someone four years older on He Tian’s shoulders. But He Tian should know what that responsibility feels like now.

‘I’m trying,’ says He Tian. ‘It’s a little hard to keep track of so many timelines.’

Guan Shan clenches his jaw. ‘You could try to keep track of one. That’d be a fuckin’ start.’

He Tian sighs. Guan Shan wonders what he must think: how old and boring Guan Shan is getting. How stern. No longer content to play his games. Guan Shan knows he’s being ridiculous—he’s twenty-two, not sixty—but he wonders if He Tian is even attracted to him now. He’s an adult trying to get his life on track, his future paved out for some indeterminate time beyond him for once in his life.

When did that happen?

He doesn’t know when, but he knows how—and it wasn’t with He Tian’s help.

Does that make him less appealing? No longer the poor kid from middle school with an incarcerated father framed for murder and grades he could barely keep up. No longer the kid who needed He Tian’s help just at the right time.

‘I keep a journal,’ says He Tian. ‘A diary. It’s been helping.’

‘With what?’ Guan Shan grunts.

‘Dates. Important events. It’s already pretty full—my older selves must drop by to fill in the gaps with things I needed to know.’

‘There’s a difference between knowin’ them and turnin’ up for them.’

He Tian gives him a hard look in the reflection of the mirror, and he takes a step forward into the bathroom. He’s still taller than Guan Shan, even at this age. Bastard.

‘I went to the restaurant,’ He Tian says quietly. ‘You and your mother had already left. Tonight, too. Yi Yun was closing up and said I’d just missed you.’

_Just missed you._

Guan Shan can’t put his finger on why the phrase stings like a splinter under the skin. He Tian can’t have meant it like that. Guan Shan knows that He Tian isn’t the sentimental type—not the kind to carry something else underneath the surface. He would’ve said it outright, no fucking about.

Guan Shan rubs at his clavicle, where it seems to hurt the most, a strange hurt like the hem of his shirt has been rubbing against his skin for too long, just enough to smart.

‘I’ve given enough of my time to that place,’ he says gruffly. ‘I don’t do hangin’ around after hours anymore.’

_Not hanging around for you. I’d be there all night._

He used to do that—take all the double shifts he could until the last chef left and there was no choice but for management to hire him on. He’d proved his dedication and skill well enough, had decent letters of recommendations from old supervisors. He’d had a call from the owner tonight as he walked home to his apartment, a short stint of kind praise for the night’s success—no empty tables or wrong orders; a night of good food, the menu transitioning with ease under Guan Shan’s guidance. There’ll be a positive review in the local paper tonight if he’s lucky.

‘Good,’ says He Tian. ‘Good. I don’t blame you. I know you’ve worked hard enough to get there.’

Guan Shan turns to face him, his back resting against the lip of the bathroom sink. ‘Do you,’ he says. He puts the towel beside him on the sink, doesn’t bother to pick it up when it slides in a heap to the tiled floor. ‘That’s interestin’—’cause, er, you haven’t _been_ here for it. Not you, anyway.’

‘I’ve done my best.’

Guan Shan grits his teeth. He’s getting a bit annoyed listening to a teenager tell him what his _best_ is when Guan Shan knows it’s not good enough.

‘You should go,’ says Guan Shan.

He Tian’s brows lift. ‘You’re telling me to leave?’ he asks. He’s got an edge to his voice that he’ll perfect when he’s older. When they were kids, Guan Shan always underestimated it. He should’ve known then what he was getting himself in for. Naivety was to blame, but now Guan Shan’s got no excuse.

‘I’m tellin’ you to go,’ Guan Shan says. ‘I’ve dropped food at your place. There’s stuff in the freezer and the cupboards are stocked. Your laundry should be done too.’

‘Either you really don’t want to see me or you’re just playing hard to get.’

‘What do you think.’

‘I know what I’d _like_ to think.’

Guan Shan grimaces. ‘Grow up, He Tian. You’re just—not what I want right now. It’s been a long fuckin’ night.’

He Tian’s smile matches his voice, razor-thin. ‘Well if you wait right here I’ll go get myself, alright?’

‘Don’t fuckin’ start that—’

‘Or am I wrong? Is there _any_ version of me you’d like to fuck you tonight?’

‘Fuck you—’

‘That’s what I’m offering,’ He Tian retorts.

Guan Shan jolts forward, ready to shove him. ‘Just get the fuck—’

He stumbles, nearly goes face-first into the floor.

His hands close around thin air.

It takes him a minute to right himself, breathing hard, and he swears.

He should have expected this. He Tian’s departures are always triggered by heightened emotion, especially when they fight or fuck—which is often the same thing. He’s found himself ridden through an orgasm only to roll over on the mattress and see the mattress slowly rising without the weight of He Tian’s body. Thrown a notepad or a new menu card only to have it thump limply against the wall—not that it would’ve ever found its target anyway.

The first time it happened Guan Shan remembers throwing up in an alleyway outside the grocery store he worked at through school. He Tian had been there, trading snide remarks with Guan Shan in the back room after going AWOL for a few days and turning up with little apology—and then he wasn’t.

Guan Shan hadn’t even blinked. It took some time for his mind to catch up with the fact. There’d been no slow disintegration, no fading away. He was there and then not.

Guan Shan couldn’t even watch him leave.

Guan Shan gathers himself. Slowly, he goes back into the bathroom. He picks up the discarded towel he’d dropped on the floor, and pulls it through the towel ring on the wall. He plucks his toothbrush from the holder, uncaps the toothpaste on the side of the sink. He’s overzealous with the paste, pops the cap back on, then twists the tap until the water sputters from the faucet and finally into the sink. He places his toothbrush under the faucet, and turns the tap off again.

Eventually, he looks at himself in the mirror.

Guan Shan catches sight of himself in the mirror. His eyes are red-rimmed from the kitchen smoke and tiredness, and he swears under his breath before jamming the toothbrush into the back of his mouth to get to his molars. The look he gives himself is relentless.

_Got your wish, didn’t you?_

* * *

He finds the journal a week later in He Tian’s apartment.

It isn’t hard to find.

The cupboards are still stocked; only one meal has been touched: a half-eaten glass container of garlic runner beans left to go cold and brown beside the microwave, which still blinks with three seconds left on the timer. Guan Shan adds a few leftovers from the restaurant to He Tian’s freezer, cleans up the container of beans, and checks on the rest of the apartment.

The bed is unslept-in, and Guan Shan knows the fortnightly cleaner hasn’t been here yet. Whenever He Tian last dropped by, it wasn’t for long. He could be gone days still—weeks, maybe. Guan Shan marks his visits on his calendar, but there’s no rhythm or pattern to them. He doesn’t know what makes He Tian stay. Why sometimes he can barely hold on for an hour, and sometimes they get weeks that feel like a honeymoon.

They’re difficult, too. Guan Shan’s life carries on, while He Tian lives like he’s just dropping by. He has the money and connections to not have to worry about a thing, and he spends time with Guan Shan like they’ve both taken a holiday with no end date. It’s easier to live with, Guan Shan supposes—the assumption that he’ll be here permanently. He’s not the type to wallow in the inevitable. Guan Shan spends enough time thinking about it for the both of them.

He Tian keeps the journal in his bedside drawer, a bound leatherback printed with neat silver lines that encloses some obscure bookmark Guan Shan doesn’t recognise to mark his place. A black fountain pen rolls around in the drawer, occasionally clattering into a pack of unused ink cartridges.

The journal has a strange, momentous weight to it.

Guan Shan’s never felt much from holding a Bible, but he guesses this is what it’s meant to be like.

There’s a surprising amount of work in the piece: it’s thin, only a few hundred pages, and each line is dedicated to a week, which means the journal spans a few decades.

Guan Shan doesn’t flick to the back. At least, he doesn’t read it. He doesn’t want to see how far back it goes or why it stops or why there’s only one book. He doesn’t want to know He Tian’s future because that will decide Guan Shan’s own, in one way or another.

He can see how He Tian’s done it: every visitor to this timeline has marked themselves in here and there, a patchwork of check-ins that is too much for Guan Shan to try to make sense of. There are events, too. Birthdays, dinners, notes about Guan Shan that Guan Shan’s eyes skim over.

_April 13th 2024: Guan Shan’s first night at the restaurant!!!_

Guan Shan closes his eyes.

‘You found it, then.’

Guan Shan whirls, snapping the journal to a shut. He holds it behind his back uselessly. He Tian’s already seen him reading it.

‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ says He Tian. ‘It’ll play with your head.’

‘I didn’t mean to,’ Guan Shan blurts. ‘You told me about it—Last week—’

He breaks off. He Tian doesn’t look annoyed, only thoughtful. He’s standing too far away, and Guan Shan’s eyes scan his face through the muted darkness. He looks…

‘How old are you?’ Guan Shan asks.

‘As old as I should be right about now,’ He Tian replies, smiling quietly. He looks tired, but he’s right: he looks twenty-three. This version of him is the right one. This one is Guan Shan’s. He Tian holds out a hand, and it takes Guan Shan a minute to realise he’s asking for the journal.

Guan Shan moves across the room and deposits it into his waiting hand, and watches silently while He Tian glances once at the bedside clock, marking the date and time, then flicks through the pages, finding his place, drawing a fingertip along his own writing. Guan Shan feels self-concious, wearing a worn-out t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants he's kept since school. 

The room is silent for a minute. And then He Tian chuckles.

‘Ha…’ he breathes. He shakes his head, then sighs. His hair has gotten long; black strands fall into his eyes and threaten to obscure his vision. ‘ _Guan Shan finds the journal,_ I need to write.’ He reads for a little longer, then his eyes flick up, apologetic. ‘We fought last week? I remember that. I missed your opening.’

‘It wasn’t an openin’,’ Guan Shan grumbles. ‘It’s not my place. I just work there.’

‘But it was important to you,’ He Tian replies. ‘I’m sorry. I tried to get there. You know I’d cut off a limb to be here.’

‘Which one?’

He Tian smirks. ‘Not that one, obviously. I think you’d be even more disappointed.’

Guan Shan shoves him gently. ‘You callin’ that a limb? Don’t flatter yourself, you bastard.’

They grin at each other, sharing the humour, and Guan Shan feels himself let out a breath he thinks he’s been holding for weeks. When was the last time they met at the right time? How long has it taken He Tian to tether himself where he should be?

‘I missed you,’ He Tian says.

Guan Shan swallows. ‘I’m sure you had company.’

‘You know it’s not the company I was looking for.’

‘Huh,’ Guan Shan says, sticking his tongue in his cheek. ‘I wasn’t good enough for you?’

‘Don’t start that,’ He Tian replies, rolling his eyes. ‘You know that’s not what I meant.’

Guan Shan shifts. ‘Yeah, I know. I missed you, too, I guess.’

‘That feel like spitting nails?’

‘Shut up,’ Guan Shan mutters, churlish. He makes no protest when He Tian closes the distance between them. He kisses Guan Shan with a tenderness that is new to the both of them, recently discovered. It’s taken years to get to that—to realise it doesn’t need to be fast and unstoppable, touching like they’re running out of time.

The sound of the journal thudding to the floor startles him.

He’s stopped from stumbling by the arm He Tian snakes around his back and he lets himself be held close, grounded by the feel of He Tian’s broad shoulders beneath his hands, the waxed leather of his dark jacket.

He smells of sweat and cigarette smoke, and the strange scent of cordite, which is the only thing that lingers when He Tian travels. It’s the only physical evidence Guan Shan has—other than how He Tian’s age shifts over an uncertain span of fifteen years.

He Tian’s tongue is hot in his mouth; he sighs against it.

This is what he’s been waiting for.

This is what makes up for the absence, the missed dinners, the empty beds.

Feeling floods Guan Shan’s body like embers catching on the breeze, the fire taking hold. His heart thumps so forcefully he wonders if He Tian can feel it too.

‘Fuck, I’ve missed you.’

It’s a whisper on He Tian’s lips when they part, unshed like a window being opened in a storm.

Guan Shan stills when He Tian goes to his knees, when his hands go to Guan Shan’s calves, as if the hold is all that’s keeping him from going entirely to the floor, and Guan Shan stares down at He Tian’s shaking shoulder blades.

He cries silently, as if he’s trained himself to suppress the sound, so it takes Guan Shan a minute to realise. Guan Shan stands there with his hands by his sides. Time ticks by.

And then he knots his fingers in He Tian’s hair, lets the grip go tight in a way that must hurt. He Tian leans into the touch, and Guan Shan doesn’t see himself moving from this spot for a little while. He’s grounded, held firm. They’re anchored by each other, resolute.

It baffles Guan Shan how right it always feels, like this—when He Tian’s finally in the right place at the right time. As if with every other version they’re always slightly out of sync, just enough that it’s noticeable, like audio playing half a second behind in a movie. But none of the matters now. Guan Shan wraps his fingers around the back of He Tian’s neck and pulls him in close.

He whispers, ‘I’ve missed you, too.’

[@teanshan_](http://instagram.com/teanshan_)

* * *

Miraculously, He Tian’s still there the next morning. He sleeps deeply after he travels, long enough that Guan Shan can wander about either of their apartments and put dishes away without He Tian rising. It’s mid-morning when Guan Shan wakes, and he swears under his breath when he catches sight of the clock.

He’s meant to open up in an hour and oversee the prep work for lunch, and he’ll get an hour’s break around four before the evening clientele starts to populate the tables. Depending on what Guan Shan looks at, the day’s already off to a good start.

He rubs at his face. His mouth feels dry and stale and he reaches for the glass of water on the bedside. His body feels pleasantly sore as he moves it. Behind him, He Tian shifts in his sleep, a long arm slung out, reaching, his legs tangled in the sheets. There’s a few days of scruff on his cheeks and his torso is laid bare. Guan Shan watches him for a few minutes before his gaze slides to the bedside drawer where, eventually, He Tian had put the journal back last night.

 _Don’t even think about it_ , he tries to tell himself—and listens.

He won’t like what he finds.

He wishes He Tian’s younger self had never told him about the journal in the first place. He’d supposed such a thing had to have existed a while back—how else would anyone keep track of so many different pasts and futures that, to He Tian, were no longer linear?

Guan Shan considers He Tian’s chest, his shoulders, the heartbeat that trembles in his throat and the slight parting of his mouth while breath inflates his lungs.

‘Shit,’ Guan Shan whispers.

He forces himself up and out of bed, away from the heat of He Tian’s body that begs him to come back to bed. By the time he’s used He Tian’s shower and pads out of the bathroom wearing yesterday’s clothes, left somewhere on the floor, He Tian is awake and sitting upright against the headboard. He’s procured a pair of glasses from somewhere and is swiping through his phone that he keeps plugged on at full charge on the dresser.

‘Twenty-three missed calls from Jian Yi, three from Zhengxi, a meme from She Li, one unsolicited group chat invite on WeChat, and… not a thing from you.’ He Tian tosses the phone forward until it lands on the end of the bed. He considers Guan Shan with a smile. ‘I’m starting to think you’re losing interest.’

Guan Shan looks at him flatly while he drags a towel through his hair.

‘Did last night give you that impression?’ he asks, pulling out a small comb from his back pocket and tugging it through the knotted strands.

‘We could try again,’ says He Tian. ‘I wouldn’t mind you wanting to prove your point.’

‘I’m not the one with the insecurity.’

He Tian points a finger at him. ‘You’re funny.’

‘I’m late. I’ve gotta get to the kitchen in twenty minutes.’

‘You’re not staying.’

Guan Shan hesitates, then says, ‘You know shit doesn’t just… wait for you to leave again before carryin’ on. I’ve got shit to do. Work. My rent’s not gonna pay itself.’

He can see a muscle jump in He Tian’s jaw. He doesn’t want this conversation now, but he doesn’t regret saying it. It’s true. The world doesn’t stop spinning when He Tian comes and goes. If Guan Shan doesn’t keep up he’s going to fall behind, and he’s got further to fall. Life isn’t going to wait for him—it never has.

‘Well then,’ He Tian says. ‘Let me walk to the restaurant with you?’

Guan Shan’s warmed by the question. He pops a brow. ‘You gonna put some clothes on first?’

He Tian winks. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he says, and takes his time moving between the bed and the bathroom, an approximate distance of ten ample feet—the perfect distance for Guan Shan to admire the crossing.

He Tian doesn’t bother shutting the door, and Guan Shan hears running water and the sound of He Tian brushing his teeth before moving out into the kitchen to wait. Guan Shan doesn’t look at the drawer again as he leaves.

The April air is swift when they set outside. Guan Shan pulls the collar of his jacket high around his face and doesn’t protest when He Tian’s large hand claps his own warmly. They take their time walking to the restaurant, and Guan Shan invites He Tian in at the door, reluctant to say goodbye now.

‘I’ll try and stay around this time,’ He Tian says, setting himself on the bar stool while Guan Shan buttons up his whites from behind the bar. The restaurant is empty. The maitre’d, kitchen hands, and waiters won’t be here for another half an hour. Guan Shan offers up He Tian a cup of hot coffee from the machine and frowns when He Tian reaches for a nearby bottle.

‘Addin’ whisky to your coffee’s not gonna make that happen,’ Guan Shan points out. ‘You know liquor makes you travel.’

He Tian unscrews the cap. ‘Lots of things make me travel, sweetheart. I’m not going to stop drinking just because that’s one of them.’

Guan Shan narrows his eyes. ‘That’ interestin’,’ he says. ‘You’d rather a mornin’ shot than to know you’ll be here at the end of the day when my shift finishes.’

He Tian sighs, leaves the bottle on the bar with a firm _clank_ , and Guan Shan feels little pleasure in his victory.

‘Drink your coffee,’ he mutters. ‘I’ve gotta open up the kitchen.’

‘Isn’t that the kitchen assistant’s job?’ He Tian asks.

‘I like to keep an eye over things.’

He Tian huffs as he takes a sip of his coffee. ‘You’ll get used to letting go.’

‘Is that a fact?’

‘Ah-ah,’ says He Tian, wagging his finger. ‘That would be telling.’

Guan Shan gives him a reproachful look. He knows He Tian’s careful with his spoilers, wary not to make something happen by the mere suggestion of it. Guan Shan has yet to get in the habit of asking for things he knows he won’t be told—and listening out for answers he knows he probably won’t want to hear.

‘Drink your coffee,’ Guan Shan says again.

He Tian grins. ‘Yes, dear.’

* * *

He Tian misses his birthday, then Christmas, then Chinese New Year. Guan Shan thinks he glimpses him on the street and in the subway and at the grocery store, mistakes him for customers at the restaurant and joggers in the park. He dreams of him, wakes to an empty bed, goes to work.

The pattern repeats long enough that Guan Shan takes longer shifts at the restaurant and eventually stops going to He Tian’s place. The seasons swing on a pendulum; the summer nights are endless. When the days grow dark again, Guan Shan realises it’s the longest He Tian’s ever been gone.

He stops crying about it after three months.

Eventually, it takes him by surprise when he finds himself thinking about He Tian at all.

‘Jian Yi went for nearly three years,’ Zhengxi reminds him, accepting the bowl of rice Guan Shan passes him with thanks. The restaurant closed up twenty minutes ago, and the kitchen assistants quietly clean up around them while Guan Shan and Zhan Zhengxi share a meal.

Zhengxi appears well, a PhD student who looks like one. His glasses suit him, and his shirt and scholarly blue jumper, a few shades darker than his eyes, do nothing to disguise that he keeps himself active. Handsome, loyal, smart. Guan Shan’s drawn to him sometimes. Happy for him in others. Mostly, he’s jealous.

‘He still comin’ by your place to do his homework?’ Guan Shan asks.

Zhengxi snorts quietly, reaching for a piece of sticky tofu with his chopsticks. ‘He’s doing well, actually,’ he says, content to change the subject onto something he understands a little more. ‘University suits him. He’s still vicious about his music theory seminars, though.’

‘He’s got alcohol and a decent fan base,’ Guan Shan says. He chews on a piece of beef, tender and soaked with spiced flavours of star anise and cloves. ‘He’ll get over it.’

‘Did you hear the new track he put out on QQ?’

‘ _I Will Be Your Light_?’ Guan Shan gives Zhengxi a pointed look. ‘Wonder who that one could’ve been about.’

Zhengxi ignores the comment. ‘He’s got nearly a million plays. There’s talks of him getting a record deal by third year, but I think he wants to run solo.’

Guan Shan considers the tone of Zhengxi’s voice, bearing the satisfaction of a proud parent—or partner. Guan Shan can’t deny that Jian Yi’s done well for himself—made something of his life that he’s happy with.

‘Good for him.’

Zhengxi eyes flick over to him, taking a sip of beer. There’s a sudden clatter out in the kitchen, and Guan Shan straightens. He considers going to check on his staff for a minute before thinking better of it. They can handle it, and he’s off the clock.

_You’ll get used to letting things go._

The memory strikes him and he plays the words over again in his head.

Longing follows swiftly, a wave sweeping goosebumps across his skin. He clenches his fists beneath the table, marks how the skin over his knuckles turns white.

What the fuck had He Tian meant then?

For the first time, Guan Shan wonders if perhaps he’d been talking about himself.

‘Do you think he’ll come back?’ Zhengxi asks quietly.

Guan Shan’s thoughts must be plain on his face. The silence between them is clouded, covered in a thin layer of dust left to settle.

‘He’s gotta,’ Guan Shan says. ‘I’ve seen him older.’

‘But that doesn’t mean he’ll come back.’

Guan Shan pulls a face. ‘If he’s gone this long… it means he’s gotta be somewhere. And it wasn’t in my past, so it’s gotta be my future.’

‘He always goes to you?’

‘Where else would he go?’

Zhengxi opens his mouth to answer, but then looks away. He doesn’t say what Guan Shan knows he’s thinking. Guan Shan almost dares him, but he holds himself back. These days, he’s started to learn not to goad everything into trying to hurt him—if it really wants, it’ll do it well enough on its own.

Zhengxi clears his throat. ‘I suppose my question is… Are you really meant to hold out for him every time he leaves?’

‘You mean—’

‘If you’re right—that he always goes to you—and he has you when he leaves, who do you have?’

‘You studyin’ psychology or physics?’

Zhengxi leans back and cradles his beer in both hands. ‘I don’t think it matters. If you haven’t asked these questions yourself, I think someone should—’

‘I’ve asked ‘em. Don’t you fuckin’ worry about that.’

‘And your conclusion?’

Guan Shan looks at him. ‘My fact-based hy-fuckin’-pothesis?’

‘Mo Guan Shan…’

‘This is it,’ Guan Shan replies curtly. ‘He has me somewhere, and I’ve got this.’

‘The waiting.’

Guan Shan looks down. ‘I’ve got him sometimes—it’s better than not at all.’

‘And that’s worth it?’

‘Would you be askin’ that if the roles were reversed? What about those three years Jian Yi was gone?’

‘I mourned him. Made my peace with it. Carried on.’

‘But you gave up everythin’ again when he came back.’

‘I made _space_ for him,’ Zhengxi corrects.

Guan Shan clicks his tongue, dismissive. ‘It’s different for you. He never left again. It wasn’t, like, this constant fuckin’ process.’ He almost laughs. ‘It’s a long-distance relationship on molly.’

Zhengxi doesn’t laugh. They eat the rest of the food, too good to waste, and each work through another bottle of beer. The conversation shifts, navigates to easier topics like Jian Yi’s search for a manager and Zhengxi’s PhD. Guan Shan mentions how he’s looking for restaurants on lease—a pipe dream for now, nothing within his budget, and how he’s been looking at going rural.

‘Isn’t that taking things backward?’ Zhengxi asks, appraising. ‘I hear about bigshot cooks moving out to the countryside, but only after they’ve made a name.’

‘You sayin’ I’m small fish?

‘I’m saying the city can offer you more for now.’

‘Aw, Zhan Zhengxi. You gonna miss me?’

Zhengxi rolls his eyes. ‘You’re decent company for the most part.’

‘High praise.’

‘Higher than you’d ever give.’

Guan Shan snorts, getting to his feet. ‘You finished?’

‘I’ll help you wash up,’ Zhengxi says. He starts to gather dishes until Guan Shan puts a hand out to stop him.

‘Leave it,’ he says. ‘You said you’re running a first year lecture tomorrow mornin’—I’ve got this.’

Zhengxi looks at him uncertainly, then checks his watch. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah, definitely. You good for a beer next week?’

‘Absolutely—on me.’ Zhengxi shrugs on his coat. ‘Thanks for dinner. It was good to see you. Maybe next week…’

_He’ll be back._

‘Not holdin’ my breath.’

Zhengxi’s eyes are apologetic. They hug briefly, say their goodbyes, and Guan Shan is alone in the restaurant. Through the windows, the streets are quiet, and Guan Shan carries the plates into the kitchen, made dim with artificial lights. It’s cooled down since they closed the kitchen off to orders, and Guan Shan shivers lightly in his grey Henley while he washes up.

His mind wanders while he moves about the kitchen and fills the sink with soapy water. He thinks about what Zhengxi had said about fairness—about so much responsibility lying on Guan Shan’s shoulder when He Tian leaves. Should it be up to him to wait—and does it matter?

If He Tian leaves, or is around but not with him, he doesn’t know if he even wants anyone else. What they have now works.

Guan Shan frowns. _Does it work for another fifty years?_ he thinks.

His hands go still in the water.

He swallows.

He finishes up, leaves the dishes on the side to drip-dry, and switches off the lights to the kitchen. He can see his breath in the air when he closes up, fiddling with the keys out on the dark street, and he burrows his mouth into his scarf to warm his cheeks with his breath.

He starts walking, glances around him, then goes still.

He smells cigarette smoke.

There’s someone leaning against the lamp post opposite the restaurant.

Guan Shan doesn’t need to look twice. He thinks he might be sick.

He Tian straightens. He has his hands in his pockets and, at first glance, looks a little gaunt.

‘I couldn’t get back,’ he says, sounding gruff. ‘I tried everything.’

The silence stretches. Guan Shan’s mouth takes a while to move the way it should; it’s been too long since it’s attempted a conversation like this.

‘It’s been six months.’

He Tian winces, grinding out the cigarette beneath his shoe. ‘I never thought I’d be gone this long.’

Guan Shan starts walking. It’s too cold to stand still, and he needs to focus on moving his feet along the pavement in front of him and not on He Tian’s face. His teeth are chattering in his mouth; he can’t clench his jaw hard enough to stop it.

‘Don’t act like you didn’t know,’ Guan Shan grunts. ‘It would’ve been in your journal.’

He Tian matches his stride easily and says, ‘I can’t rely on that all the time. It’s a fickle system.’

‘Fickle,’ Guan Shan mutters.

‘You didn’t read it?’

‘You told me not to.’

He Tian snorts, as if this is funny. As if they’re just catching up after a busy day at work.

‘Didn’t think you’d actually listen to me, did I?’ says He Tian. ‘Knowing you.’

‘You said it would play with my head. As if, y’know, no other part of this would.’

‘Next time? Look.’

Guan Shan ignores the instruction and tries for something easier: ‘Where’d you go?’

‘It took me to Sichuan somewhere. I had no money—no phone. I got hold of He Cheng eventually and then I travelled again. It was like running in a nightmare. Every time I thought I got close to you, I just got pulled away again.’ He looks at Guan Shan. ‘You know I’d never leave you like that on purpose.’

Guan Shan glances at him. ‘You’ve never travelled out the city before.’

He Tian nods. ‘It’s getting worse. He Cheng’s got me an appointment with my doctor first thing—she’s flying in from Singapore tonight.’

‘If you don’t travel before then,’ Guan Shan points out.

‘I’m as frustrated with this as you are.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘Don’t fight with me on that one, Guan Shan. You don’t know how I feel.’ Guan Shan can feel He Tian’s heavy gaze on him. ‘Do you want to think it doesn’t hurt me? All of this?’

Guan Shan shakes his head. ‘I spend enough time with my own fuckin’ thoughts and feelings. You think I got time to think about yours for half a year as well when you’re not even here for it?’

* * *

He goes with He Tian to his appointment next morning.

The doctor has a Beijing office she uses once a month for overseas patients where a video call won’t suffice—apparently disappearing for six months at a time from the present day is enough to warrant a flight. That and He Cheng will be paying her well.

It gets Guan Shan thinking, while he sits in the bright white lobby and flicks through a Danish architecture magazine: what if this isn’t the present day? What if He Tian is lured so constantly to a future time they share, and this time is not it?

Instantly, he’s filled with hate for his future self, a vicious and ridiculous envy. He’s felt it before—the self-loathing for a man who has already or will one day exist, the same man he’ll be and has been.

He looks at the clock.

It’s his day off today, and the sky outside is blue. He’d thought of going for a run, grabbing breakfast somewhere, dinner for one at the flat and a few hours of recipe testing for the restaurant. He should still do that, he reasons—he should live the life he intends to without interruption. In a few hours, He Tian could be gone again.

Only slightly, he can hear He Tian talking through the closed door to the doctor’s office. Guan Shan’s glimpse of her had been brief: a short, stout woman with a rough voice and grey-brown eyes. He Tian had embraced her like an old friend before shutting the door behind him.

Guan Shan puts the magazine down and folds his arms. Through the frosted glass doors out to the hallway, he sees the elevator doors slide open and the vague form of a figure step out. He watches as the figure approaches, pauses once, then opens the door.

Guan Shan blinks. ‘Xiao Hui.’

The woman falters, looking at him with confusion, then her eyes widen. ‘Mo Guan Shan? _Āi yā_ , look at you!’

He shifts uncomfortably beneath Xiao Hui’s gaze as she heads over, plonking herself down in another empty armchair across the low coffee table. She looks good, wears a powder blue coat over a white dress and has her dark hair trailing low down her back. He hasn’t seen her since graduation.

‘What are you doin’ here?’

‘I could ask you the same question!’ She looks him up and down while she strips off a pair of white suede gloves, eyes the piercings in his ears and the rings on his fingers. He wonders what she sees. ‘You’re here to see Yīshēng Qiao, too?’

Guan Shan grimaces. ‘Ah, no. Not me.’ He angles his head towards the closed door. ‘He Tian.’

‘Ohhh. You guys are still dating?’ She leans forward. ‘I heard he travels a lot.’

Guan Shan hesitates. ‘Yeah.’

‘You must like that,’ she says. ‘You always did like your own space.’

She grins suddenly, like they're sharing a secret, and Guan Shan finds himself oddly drawn to it. She never had this warm charisma in school—not middle school, anyway. It’s a new development that Guan Shan finds he likes in her. He remembers his near-suspension from school with unsettling clarity; he remembers, too, the exoneration he’d faced because of Xiao Hui’s spark of consciousness.

He’d never been kind to her—never even been polite.

She’d been kinder to him than he deserved.

He knows he owes her; he doesn’t know how to settle it.

‘Guess I did,’ he says. ‘Wouldn’t think you’d remember that.’

‘You never stood in the background, Mo Guan Shan.’

He looks at her. ‘Neither did you.’

‘Wouldn’t think you’d remember that,’ she teases.

‘Yeah, I mean. The letter you wrote. And when you, er, stood up for me. Pretty fuckin’ ballsy.’

She grins. ‘You’re welcome. Didn’t look like anyone else was going to help you.’ There’s a hurried glance. ‘No offence.’

‘None taken.’ He gives her a glance of his own. ‘Didn’t do much to earn anyone’s loyalty. Definitely not yours.’

She tucks a strand of dark hair behind her ear. ‘I always had this feeling that you didn’t deserve everything you went through. I remember She Li always had it out for you… The teachers, too. It was like you couldn’t catch a break, you know?’

‘Oh, yeah. I know.’

She chuckles. There’s a lull in the conversation. Guan Shan is slightly fascinated by her, this strange gift from the past. He hasn’t thought about school outside the context of He Tian in a while. He’s forgotten most people—even She Li—exist. Had any of that torment ever really happened? At the time, it had felt like it wasn’t going to end. Fuck, he’d hated it.

He clears his throat. ‘So, are you, like, travellin’ too?’

She smiles when she says, ‘What do you mean?’

‘You—D’you leave Beijing much?’

‘I live in Nanjing, actually,’ Xiao Hui tells him. ‘Yīshēng Qiao told me she’d be on the mainland last night so I knew I had to see her. I got the five o’clock train this morning. My parents are putting me up for the night—feels like I’m a kid again!’

‘Seein’ me can’t help that much.’

She laughs. ‘Yeah, talk about a blast from the past. _Yā..._ Mo Guan Shan in the flesh.’ She props her chin in her palm. ‘You look well, you know.’

‘Thanks. Same to you. I like your coat.’

‘I like your hair.’

Guan Shan snorts. ‘Always got me in trouble.’

‘Did it?’ she says. ‘Or was that the company you kept?’

He scratches the back of his neck, chagrinned. ‘Bit of both?’

She smiles smugly. ‘Thought so.’ When he says nothing else, she says, ‘You want to know why I’m here, don’t you?’

‘That’s not—’

‘I don’t blame you.’ She crosses one leg neatly over the other. ‘A little curiosity’s a good thing.’

‘Tell me then.’

She laughs. ‘There’s not much to tell, really. Yīshēng Qiao’s my psychiatrist. I saw her here before she moved to Singapore.’

‘Psychiatrist?’ Guan Shan echoes. It isn’t what he was expecting. What about a specialist in supernatural phenomena? A scientist who studies time-travel? Does it mean that the research isn’t there—that He Tian’s condition is so far from being helped? ‘Like—for your head?’

‘Yes, Guan Shan. For my head.’ She sighs. ‘She works in research now. Studying brain waves or something, I don’t know—but I used to see her when I was in middle school when she did more clinical stuff.’

It hurts when Guan Shan swallows; there’s a strange lump in it that has come on suddenly and sits there, unwelcome.

‘Does she help?’ he asks. ‘With everythin’?’

‘She does her best,’ Xiao Hui says. Her eyes soften. ‘Don’t worry—He Tian’s in safe hands.’

‘I guess I was just askin’ about you.’

‘Oh,’ she says. She looks as if she might reach for his hand, and then decides not to. Instead, she says, ‘That’s sweet.’

* * *

‘She gave me some tablets. She thinks they’ll help.’

‘Like—antidepressants?’

He Tian gives him an odd look. ‘Not quite. She said there’s been success using an old anti-anxiety medication. It might help mellow me out. Make my brain less likely to want to make me run from a situation.’

Guan Shan glances at him. They’re sitting side by side on a bench in Beihai Park, hands curled around to-go cups of coffee from a nearby breakfast van, still hot. The sun is bright enough that they can stay seated for a little while before Guan Shan’s cheeks feel pinched from the cold.

‘Is that what it feels like?’ he asks. ‘You wanna run all the time?’

‘Not at all.’ He Tian narrows his eyes, looking out across the park. ‘She thinks I spent so much time as a kid getting ready to fight and face things straight-on that I never got a chance to just—back away and leave.’ He smiles. ‘And now it’s all I know how to. Like survival instinct. The smallest bit of conflict and my brain decides I should fuck off and go on holiday.’

‘To Sichuan.’

He Tian snorts. ‘Yeah. To fucking Sichuan.’ He takes a sip of coffee then says, ‘She thinks I need to be rewired. To learn how to handle things better.’

‘There’s no cure?’ Guan Shan asks. ‘No way to stop it? Can’t she teach you how to control it?’

‘That’s her best advice—control it by stopping it from happening in the first place.’

‘D’you even want that?’

‘I’ve wanted nothing else since I missed dinner after our graduation.’

Guan Shan drinks his coffee, feels the heat curl in his throat and travel downwards to his stomach.

‘I lied,’ he says. ‘About lookin’ in the book. I looked. It was six months. I didn’t look at where you’d gone or when you were comin’ back, but—I saw the end of it. Your last entry.’

‘Guan Shan, that’s…’ He Tian blows the air from between his cheeks. ‘You don’t know that’s the end. I don’t know that’s the end.’

‘You’re tellin’ me you don’t come here when you’re thirty or forty and write anythin’ down? What about when you’re an old man?’

‘What about it?’

‘You know where this is goin’.’

‘I don’t know what to tell you, Guan Shan. I don’t know why I don’t write.’

‘You’ve been to the future, He Tian. You’ve gotta know somethin’.’

He Tian’s brow furrows. He hasn’t touched his coffee. Time passes long enough that Guan Shan becomes convinced he won’t speak again, resigned to one of his deep and peculiar silences, hard like permafrost.

‘I’ve been trying to answer it myself,’ he says eventually. ‘Every time I travel, if I’m not trying to get to you or get back then I’m trying to make sense of everything else.’

‘Got any theories?’

‘A few,’ He Tian admits. ‘Ideally, I’ve stopped travelling by then—or stopped journaling it.’

‘Not ideally?’

He Tian turns his head and holds Guan Shan’s gaze. ‘Ideally,’ he says, ‘that’s not a future I want to imagine happening.’

Guan Shan digests this. ‘You think when you’re thirty that—Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?’

‘I’m not laughing.’

‘You should. This is fuckin’ hilarious.’

He Tian frowns. The expression makes him look like his brother. ‘You think you’ve wasted your time.’

‘I dunno, He Tian.’ Guan Shan gets to his feet, leaves his coffee on the bench. Gravel crunches under his feet. _‘Shit.’_

‘I don’t know anything yet. Ah-Shan—Listen to me. I don’t know anything.’

Guan Shan puts his face in his hands and tries to breathe out slowly. He hears He Tian move, almost-silently, until He Tian’s standing before him. His body offers only the slightest warmth, the slightest untouched shielding from the cold. Guan Shan wants to crowd close into it. He wants to run.

‘Shit,’ he says again.

‘C’mon,’ He Tian says, wrapping nimble fingers around the bones of Guan Shan’s wrists. He tugs on them. ‘Listen to me.’

‘Say somethin’ worth listenin’ to.’

He Tian sighs. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next ten years—the next twenty. I want these pills to work but I know they’re not perfect. I want us to be together and I know that we’re not perfect, either. But I’m still going to take the pills.’

Guan Shan lets his hands drop. He searches He Tian’s dark eyes, the strangely closed-off, yet earnest set of his features.

‘What’s your point?’ Guan Shan asks quietly.

‘I’ll come back to you every time—for as long as you’ll have me. There’s nothing else here for me to return to.’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘I know,’ He Tian says. ‘I’m sorry for that, too.’

‘So what? You’re givin’ me some kinda ultimatum? Is that what this is?’

‘I’m _asking_ you if you want me to keep coming back. If you don’t, tell me. I won’t blame you.’

Guan Shan looks down at his feet. His eyes have started to sting. ‘D’you really think I wasn’t gonna stick around? Even if you didn’t travel—the chances of you livin’ to be an old man were never that high anyway—’

‘Thanks, sweetheart.’

‘—and I planned on bein’ there for all of it anyway.’

He can feel He Tian searching his face before He Tian says simply, ‘You always could’ve had more than this.’

_You always did like your own space._

Guan Shan plays Xiao Hui’s words around in his head. He doesn’t know if the statement’s true. He remembers seeking out solitude because it was safe, because company always smelled of some kind of danger, sharp as vinegar, some liability for injury and wounding.

He Tian made him lose that, shrugging it off like an old, well-worn coat with holes in the cuffs through which he could hook his thumbs. Until recently, he’s been grateful for it.

He tries to picture it: someone else, somewhere else. A perpetually warmed bed. Company on weekends and days off. A hand to hold. For a brief moment, he imagines Xiao Hui’s happy smile and his stomach knots.

He says, ‘Could’ve had none of it, too.’

‘Which is worse?’

‘Guess I won’t know—unless you can travel to alternate universes now.’

He Tian’s smile is wry. ‘I think that would make things complicated.’

‘Yeah. Couldn’t fuckin’ imagine _complicated._ ’

They share the joke with a look that’s built on ten years of understanding, and Guan Shan knows in that moment that he can bear this—all of this—to have a few minutes with his best friend and be known.

‘Guan Shan?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Guan Shan blurts. ‘I guess I always thought all this was only hard on me, and… Don’t gimme that look.’

Smugly, ‘What look?’

‘That look that says it’s nothin’ new.’

‘Well—’

Guan Shan narrows his eyes. ‘Are you takin’ my apology or not?’

‘That depends,’ says He Tian. ‘Did you mean it? When you said you planned on being here?’

‘Yeah, I guess.’ Guan Shan draws in a shaky breath. It’s getting too cold to stand about, and Guan Shan’s seeing the last pages of He Tian’s journal flash in the back of his mind, the date etched in the scratchy ink of He Tian’s handwriting. ‘If I only get what I’m given I’d better make the most of it.’

He Tian tugs him close. ‘I promise, Mo Guan Shan, that I’ll do my best to make it worth your while.’

**Author's Note:**

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